Swelter Skelter Rewritten
by PrincessSara1998
Summary: It's a hot day and Lifty and Shifty want to cool off. But their plan to do so not only doesn't go as planned, it leaves them not feeling good. How will they sort their situation out? This is a remake of the Happy Tree Friends episode "Swelter Skelter," but with no deaths.


It was one of the hottest days of the year in the forest where the Happy Tree Friends lived. The heat was making it difficult for most of the Tree Friends to have fun - especially when they were outside. But among everyone who lived there, only a couple of raccoons were the ones that had it the worst.

Lifty and Shifty were on the swings at the park, both of them panting hard as sweat covered their faces. Lifty was lying on his stomach on one of the swings, with Shifty sitting on the one next to him. Neither of them had ever felt this hot in their lives.

"Oh, man... it's so hot, bro," Shifty commented.

"Yeah," Lifty replied. Then a thought came to him. "Hey, bro?"

"Yeah?"

"If it's hot out, why are we even outside?"

Shifty thought about this for a moment, but couldn't come up with a good answer.

"I don't even know..."

The two raccoons continued to pant on the swings. Close to them, Petunia stood, fanning herself and sweating as well.

"Phew..." she said to herself. "How could this heat get any worse?"

Giggles went up to a nearby slide and climbed to the top, an excited smile on her face.

"Oh, this is gonna be great!" she said. She started to push herself down, but almost as soon as she did so...

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!"

A loud, feminine scream exploded from Giggles, due to the extreme heat of the slide. At worst, however, it caused Lifty and Shifty to cringe from how loud it was.

"It's... too hot!" Giggles said as she got off the slide, leaving not long afterwards.

"Ugh, this sucks," said Lifty. "What are we gonna do, bro?"

Before Shifty even had time to answer, however, they saw somebody walk their way. It was Nutty, holding a snow cone and jittering happily.

"Hehehehe! This tastes so good!" Nutty said.

"Bro, are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Shifty asked.

"I think I am!" Lifty said.

They both emitted their signature snicker, and got off the swings.

Nutty was about to enjoy his snow cone, when he felt a tap on his shoulder. Not knowing who to expect, he turned around. But his eyes widened in fear when he saw that Lifty and Shifty were right behind him.

"Uh... Hey, guys," Nutty greeted them, trying not to sound nervous. But it was clear that he wasn't doing a good job at doing so. "Do you want something from me?"

Without saying a word, Lifty and Shifty pointed at what Nutty was holding. Nutty almost immediately figured out what they wanted.

"No... No, this is mine! You can't have it!"

Nutty started to back away, trying to get out of this situation. But he suddenly tripped over something, causing him to fall over on his back, hit his head, and let go of his snow cone.

"Heh, sucker!" Shifty said. He had tripped Nutty by simply sticking out his leg behind him.

Nutty sat up, rubbing the back of his head in pain.

"Ugh, why do you do this to me?!" he asked, sounding angry and sad at the same time. "I swear, I'm gonna get you two for this!"

He then ran off, not knowing what had happened to his snow cone. Shifty caught the cone itself before it could hit the ground, but the ice landed on the ground, melting on contact.

The raccoons looked on with disbelief, which turned into disappointment.

"Now what do we do?" Lifty asked.

Just then, they heard something and looked to their side. Cro-Marmot has arrived to the park in his ice cream truck, presumably to help his friends that were trying to chill out.

"Wow. Look who came at just the right time," Shifty said.

"I didn't think he'd be here, but since he is..."

The raccoons again emitted their signature snicker, and walked over to Cro-Marmot. If he weren't frozen, he would have asked them something among the lines of, "What can I get you boys?" But instead, he stayed motionless in his ice block, even when Lifty and Shifty went behind him and started to push him away from his truck.

A few minutes later, Lifty and Shifty returned to their apartment and left Cro-Marmot in the middle of the room. Surrounding him were a few electric fans, all plugged in and turned on at the highest settings. And within minutes, their room cooled down, and they started to feel a whole lot better.

"Man, that was a great idea!" Lifty said.

"It sure was!" said Shifty. "And it didn't even backfire!"

"You know, it's been a while since we did something bad and got away with it," said Lifty. "It feels so good!"

"Yeah! What's the worst that could happen?"

Shifty attempted to take a sip of the drink he was holding, but it didn't work, for some reason.

"Huh? What the...?" He turned the cup over, but the liquid stayed stuck to the bottom, and the straw that was in it was stuck to the bottom, too.

"What the heck?" Lifty asked, not believing this, either.

Just when they thought their problem had been solved, it was starting to get worse.

"Uh, bro?" Lifty asked, and then started to shiver. "It's getting cold in here..."

Shifty didn't believe him at first, but then he started to shiver as well.

"Dang it, you're right!" Shifty responded.

The raccoons quickly found their winter clothing and put them on. But it wasn't much help; they continued to shiver. The cold was getting worse by the second, to the point that it started to snow inside of their apartment. They were surprised to notice that at first, but they didn't concentrate too much on that.

"How could this get any worse?" Shifty asked himself.

"Bro? I don't feel so good..." Lifty whimpered, his dialogue barely audible. Just then, he inhaled a couple of times, about to sneeze. "Aah... haah, HAH-CHOOOO!"

Shifty cringed as Lifty released his sneeze, doubling over as he did so. A moment later, Lifty recovered, groaning and rubbing his nose with his forefinger.

"Oh, don't tell me you're... HaaaaAAAAAAH-!" Shifty gave an audible inhale, and then exploded, throwing his hands over his mouth. "CHOOOOOOOOO!"

"Ugh, dang it!" Shifty pulled his hands away and rubbed his nose with his fist. "I don't feel good, either. What the heck's going on?"

Without knowing what they were doing, the raccoons both turned to look at Cro-Marmot. It was then that they realized that they didn't think their plan through.

"Bro, I don't wanna make this worse, but... Aaah-choo!" Lifty sniffled again and rubbed his nose once more with his forefinger. "...this has gotten worse."

"No kidding," Shifty responded, flatly. "Looks like we gotta get him out of here."

The raccoons stood up and went up to Cro-Marmot. They started to push him towards the front door, but it was pretty hard for them to do so. Not only was his ice block pretty heavy, but Lifty and Shifty themselves really weren't feeling that great.

"How did we not see this coming...?" Shifty asked himself, and he inhaled and sneezed again. "Aaaah-choooo!"

"We really gotta think about what we do before we do it..." Shifty rubbed his nose, this time on his arm.

When the raccoons made it to the door, Shifty tried to open it, but it didn't move. It was frozen shut, so the raccoons were stuck in their freezing apartment.

"Great, just great..." Shifty muttered. "Now what?" Suddenly, his nose twitched furiously, and he inhaled, about to sneeze again. "Aaaah, haaaah... HAAAAAAAH-CHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

That was a significantly bigger and louder than what Shifty was used to. The poor raccoon sniffled and rubbed his nose on his fist.

"This... is the worst," he said.

"Don't worry, bro, I think I've got it," said Lifty.

Shifty looked at his brother. He had somehow acquired a blow torch and was about to use it.

"Remember when we... Haaaaah-choooo! ...stole this?" Lifty rubbed his nose with his hand, the one that wasn't holding the blow torch.

"Yeah," Shifty responded with a nod and a sniffle.

Lifty approached the frozen doorknob, held the nozzle of the blow torch in front of it and turned it on. A few jets of flame came out at first, but then froze into ice and fell to the floor.

"Oh, come on!" Shifty said, dismayed. "Dang it, Lifty!"

"What? I didn't know it wouldn't work!" Lifty said, trying to reason with his brother.

What he didn't know, however, was that Shifty wasn't mad at him, but at the fact that one of their only hopes of escaping had failed.

"It's no use, bro. We're never gonna get outta here..."

"Haaaaaah..." Lifty suddenly inhaled, tilting his neck back as his nose twitched. "Aaaaaah, aaaaaaaaaaaaaah..."

"Bro? Are you gonna..." The moment Shifty heard his brother's inhales increase, however, his eyes widened and pupils shrunk in realization. Lifty was about to release a more powerful sneeze than he had already heard from him. When they were in bad situations, Lifty and/or Shifty would sometimes have to sneeze, really hard. It wasn't the same as their normal sneezes; this kind of sneeze was enough to eliminate the source of their problems, usually by pushing it out of the way or, if it was a living thing, scaring it off. And if they didn't have to sneeze, someone else would usually make them. In this case, Lifty was going to get Cro-Marmot out of the apartment, by sneezing him out of the apartment.

"No... please! You wouldn't!"

"Aaaaaaaaahhhh... HaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAH..." Lifty backed up a few steps, not knowing he was heading right behind Cro-Marmot. He would have tried to hold back his sneeze, but he just couldn't help himself. "HaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAHHHHH..."

Shifty backed up a few steps, then put his hands to his ears, not wanting to hear the sneeze. Not long afterward, Lifty took a final inhale and exploded.

"HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH-CHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Lifty shot his neck forwards as he released the sneeze, a good amount of spray and wind firing out of his mouth. The powerful sneeze was enough to blow Cro-Marmot into the door, which not only opened it, but broke off as he headed into the hallways.

Luckily, Cro-Marmot's ice block slowly slid to a stop, and the door fell off onto the floor with an audible thud. Both of them were completely unscathed.

Shifty stood where he was, not believing his eyes, while Lifty stood next to him, sniffling and rubbing his nose constantly with his forefinger. It was then that the two of them started feeling warmer, but Shifty noticed this feeling before Lifty did. Then, breaking character for a minute, Shifty looked over at Lifty and gave him a hug - while he was still rubbing his nose.

"Oh, thank you, Lifty! You saved us!" Shifty said, and then he let go of him. "How can I ever make it up to you?"

"Well..." Lifty gave another audible sniffle. "I guess you could take care of me..."

Shifty was about to respond, but then he sneezed again. "Haaaaaah-CHOOOOOOO! Ugh..." He sniffled and rubbed his nose with his forefinger.

"Oh, right... you're sick, too." Lifty blushed a little out of embarrassment. "Sorry, I kinda forgot..."

"It's alright, bro."

Outside of their apartment room, a Generic Tree Friend that was working as a bellhop found the door, still sitting in front of Cro-Marmot. The Generic Tree Friend picked up the door and placed it back onto the doorway that led to the raccoons' apartment.

Not long afterwards, the raccoons lay in their beds, having taken off their winter clothing, but still feeling sick.

"HAAAAAAH-CHOOOOOOOO!" Shifty released yet another sneeze, causing Lifty to cringe. Almost immediately afterwards, Shifty rubbed his nose again with his fist, sniffling.

"As soon as we get better, I'll pay for everything you want for the next week after that," he promised his brother.

"Sweet. Thanks... AaaaaaAAAAAAAH-" Lifty inhaled once again, and then through his hand over his mouth, releasing a rather anticlimactic sneeze. "Choooooooo!"

"Ugh." Lifty sniffled and rubbed his nose with his forefinger. Just seeing him do that reminded Shifty of Lumpy for some reason, and he had to mention him.

"I sure am glad Lumpy didn't get us sick, that would've been even worse!" Shifty said.

"Yeah, I would've been so mad at him if he did!" Lifty agreed.

Meanwhile, back at the park, Lumpy inhaled and sneezed, loudly.

"AaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH-CHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Lumpy shot his neck forwards as he released his sneeze, which fired a good amount of saliva from his mouth. Recovering almost immediately, he sniffled and rubbed his nose with his forefinger.

"Did somebody say my name just now...?" he asked himself, but then shrugged it off. "Nah. It's probably just my allergies. Unless it was Lifty and Shifty saying something mean about me..."

"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH-CHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Lifty and Shifty both sneezed at almost the exact same time. They then recovered, rubbing their noses; the former used his forefinger and the latter used the back of his hand.

"I think he knows what we just said!" Lifty said, sounding almost concerned.

"Oh, and Lifty?" Shifty asked. "Maybe you should stop watching those anime videos for a while."

"But that's not why I said that..."

"Sure." Shifty rolled his eyes and rubbed his nose again, not believing what his brother had said.


End file.
